


Visibility

by iniquiticity



Category: Lucifer (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Gen, Season/Series 04 Spoilers, tumblr prompt fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-03
Updated: 2019-07-03
Packaged: 2020-06-03 06:23:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,328
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19458196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iniquiticity/pseuds/iniquiticity
Summary: “Hey, Chloe,” Miss Lopez says, appearing out of the forensic room, “So I was looking at that trophy and –” She looks up from the paper and looks at him.At him.





	Visibility

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt Fill: Imagine Lucifer breaking, just for a moment, and slipping up to Los Angeles to see Chloe without her knowing. He keeps himself invisible, because he doesn’t want to break whatever peace she has.
> 
> Ella can totally see him.  
>    
> [original prompt here.](https://teashadephoenix.tumblr.com/post/185590985502/imagine-lucifer-breaking-just-for-a-moment-and)
> 
> as always, i can be reached on tumblr at [iniquiticity](http://iniquiticity.tumblr.com), or on twitter at [@iniquiticity](https://twitter.com/iniquiticity)

After a while he can’t bear it anymore. The ash is fine, the silence and death and quiet, punctuated occasionally by the screams. The endless dull, the monotony. He remembers another version of him would break up the boredom by torturing these poor humans, but he can’t even bring himself to do it. It’s boring. they torture themselves enough. Once he thought otherwise. 

He makes sure the demons all know his strength, and then he goes up. A blink and he’s absorbing the energy of LA, the heat (it’s the heat of being alive, of living, of the sun, not like what hell, not like his prison, not like –), the energy, the sound, squealing brakes and screaming. Spanish. He quirks his ear and hears the sound of someone doing coke, of someone crying, of someone laughing, of proposals, of break-ups, of love. Of life. Every part of him wrenches. Even the screams are different. 

A flicker of magic and he’s hidden from mortal eyes. Maybe not Chloe’s. Maybe he doesn’t want to be hidden from Chloe. He can’t bring himself to say he doesn’t care if she sees.

A flutter and he’s inside the precinct building. There’s Jay adding too much sugar to his coffee and Jamie talking about her crush and Antonio putting away a donut and Daniel - he even misses Daniel!!! - hiding his yogurts behind someone’s old tupperware. Maybe Dad lets him do this torture himself worse. That’s it. Dad wants him to know what he can’t have. Dad wants him to see Xavier pumping himself up in the mirror for a promotion and Brienne touching a picture of Vivian in her locker.

Dad wants him to see –

— there she is at her desk. Tired. She looks – worse. Tired. His mouth forms the words – _My, detective, is there some way I can be of assistance?_ – but the air doesn’t move. He stands there and they move around him without even seeing him.

“Dan,” she says, when Daniel appears from the kitchen, “So, this murder weapon - it was a trophy, right? Maybe someone involved in a competition the victim was in?”

His wings keep him from falling to his knees. He can feel the power leaking out of him, like he wants to step in to the visible spectrum. He wants to so badly. If she would only look at him again. If she would frown at him for being late. If she tells him to focus on the case. If she would be annoyed he was right. If she – If she would know he was there. If she would touch him.

A noise escapes him. She doesn’t hear it.

She looks even more tired than usual. He wants – he wants her in ways he didn’t know existed. He wants to hold her, to take her on vacations, to make sure every single one of her need is fulfilled. She would never want for anything. He wants to take her in his arms and lay her in his bed and give her roses and wine from the 1500s and –

– What has he done? What has he done but abandoned her for … for this nothing, for –

No.

He is protecting her. He is – he is a new angel, a new devil. He can feel the self-hatred like a flame now. He is doing the right thing. He is doing the right thing for her. He is doing the right thing because of her. He glances at one brilliantly white feathered wing, like it would change instantly.

“Hey, Chloe,” Miss Lopez says, appearing out of the forensic room, “So I was looking at that trophy and –” She looks up from the paper and looks at him.

At him. 

Miss Lopez can’t —

She is. She’s looking at him. She can _see_ him. She can see _him_. **She can see him.**

_Azrael._

_“I told her I was a ghost,” Azrael had said._

Her mouth folds around his name but he snatches it from the air. She stares at her mouth, then at him. He presses a finger to his lips, and she looks baffled at him.

He points back to the forensics lab.

“Ella?” Chloe says, no less confused.

“Um! Chloe! Hi! Yeah! Here’s a report! On the trophy! It’s weird! Um! I forgot something in the forensics lab! Guess I better! Go back there! Right now!” Miss Lopez says, and practically throws the report on the desk and flees.

“Do I look that bad?” Chloe says to Dan. 

“Look, I know Lucifer leaving has been hard…” Dan says, without answering. 

A flick and Lucifer’s in the forensics lab. The blinds close. Chloe is right there, on the other side of the door. How easy would it be to just kiss her again, to touch her.

Miss Lopez closes the door behind her and is staring at him again. “You’re here! But they didn’t see you! And you – you left! And you – what’s going on? Why didn’t they – what’s wrong with you?!” She’s angry and sad and he – he hates Dad so much more with every secret. How dare Dad make him do this to Chloe, to Ella, to Linda, to Baby Charlie. He’s mad he had to abandon a fucking baby. That's what it's come to.

“Well, Miss Lopez,” he says, slowly, “Your friend. Rae-Rae. I’m like her.”

She doesn’t understand, and then her eyes go wide, like she’s trying. He’s going to have a word with Azrael. Several of them.

“You’re a ghost?” she says, “Are you dead?” Then she runs up to him and yanks the pocket square out of his pocket, staring at it, at him, and Chloe and Daniel outside, and then him again. "You are not dead."

“Maybe it’s more accurate to say that Rae-Rae - Azrael - is more like me.” 

**** 

  


“So, if Rae-Rae is an angel, that means you’re one too?” Ella asked, looking up and down at him. They were in her apartment, and she was flopped into a massive beanbag that looked like it would consume her completely at any moment. He stood, taking it all in, relishing even for a moment the air and smell of LA, the sight of things. If he relished and enjoyed this, he would stop thinking about Chloe. He would stop thinking just how close he had been - how close he still was -- to touching her. 

“In a manner of speaking,” he said. 

“Fallen angels are still angels, you know,” Ella said, and shrugged as much as the beanbag would let her, “Just saying.” 

He hadn’t expected that. She must have seen his expression, because she began to struggle out of the beanbag, and after a moment of watching he offered her a hand, which she took without pause. Finally on her feet, she looked up at him and smiled. “I’ve had jobs I’ve hated too,” she said, “And maybe I didn’t always make the best impression. But you’re way more than a job, you know?” 

He watched her meander, in her way, through to the tiny kitchen. She opened a refrigerator stocked with boxes and strange tupperwares and items marked ELLA and MICHELLE and TAYLOR. She took out a can. 

“So then you know,” he said, “What I am.” 

“The ‘I’m telling the truth but no one believes me,’ is really convincing and awesome,” she said, “But I mean… I guess I do now.” 

“And that doesn’t frighten you?” 

She opened the can with the hiss of unpressurizing air. “Why would it? You’re still the same Lucifer I’ve always known, right?” 

“Normally that’s a fairly distressing revelation,” he folded his hands behind his back, watching her ease and trying to suppress his bafflement, “Especially given your…..” Eyes flicked to the cross at her neck, “...habits.” 

She took a loud sip, then put the can down. A hand went the aforementioned jewelry, “Woah, who’s being judgy about who’s identity, right now?” 

“Must be the thousand years of negative press,” he snapped. 

She pushed herself up from the table and folded her arms against her chest, pulling her posture back. “So what you’re saying is you’re predicting how I should feel about you based on some other people and what they wrote a squillion years ago, and not any of my personal interactions with you.” 

A beat, and she drooped. 

“Sorry,” she said, “I know you’ve got a bad rap. But I know you. You’re my friend. You’re actually a pretty cool dude. I have seen you in action, real life action, not like some Latin guy from 500 years ago talking about you eating babies or something -- that’s way more important. So if you really are the devil--” 

“--- which I am.” 

“Then what I’m saying is that I’m still cool with you, because you’re a dude who has issues with his messed up family and you got stuck with a shitty job and you’re just trying to do your best, you know? I'm cool with that.”

Lucifer stared at her. He took a step away from the counter and into the excessively cheery living room, where there were stacked an unbelievable number of plants as well as some posters of famous people. 

“So that’s it then,” he said. 

She took another step. 

“Onto more important things!” she tapped the bottom of the can on the kitchen counter, “So if you are actually Samael--” 

“Don’t call me that.” He snapped, and felt a flash of rage like hellfire in him. 

She blinked. “That’s your name, isn’t it?” 

“That name,” he hissed, and only with effort did he restrain the hot rush of anger, “Is a person I used to be. A Very, very long time ago. If you do support me, Miss Lopez, Lucifer it is.” 

“Sorry,” she said, evidently rattled. Of course she was. She could say she didn’t mind, but look at her. Look at the way she took a steadying a drink and tried to gather herself.“It’s just ---” 

“It’s just nothing,” he said

“But why would you pick a name that represents evil when you have a name that better encompsses all your goodness?” 

“The name is mine,” he said, “It was not given to me by a father that rejected me and and a family that completely discarded me. That strikes me as a little less accepting.” 

“That is not what I said!” 

“The dad, which, by the way, you ask for help when you’re confused.” A test. He took a step back, felt the leather of wings against his back. The can spilled fizzy water onto the kitchen counter, and Miss Lopez startled back against the refrigerator and stared at him. 

“You know I don’t like a liar,” he hissed, and then with an irritated grunt he spread them and pulled the air through the window around him. 

  


**** 

  


When he came back from rounds - punishing the unworthy and making sure demons knew exactly who their king was and that he would permit no excess rebellion, Azrael was there. She hovered with great flaps of her wings next to the empty throne and frowned at him as he landed on top of it, settling himself into the place where he fit. 

“Certainly this isn’t just a pleasant chat,” he snapped, and with a sharp wave, formed a platform out of stormclouds into stone for her. She landed and took him in. 

“You really scared Ella,” Azrael said. 

“Being that I am an evil being with an evil name, what else should I have done?” 

“She knows you’re a good person, she was just trying to tell you that. She was trying to tell _me_ that.” 

“I am the king of Hell, sister,” he said, as if it wasn’t obvious. 

She sighed and glanced off the platform into the prisons below. “We all do what we do.” 

“Yes, and what I do is imprison the souls of the damned for all eternity. Which I would like to get back to, if you don’t mind.” 

“Luce,” Azrael sighed, “You’re being..” 

“Unless you’d like to volunteer to take over for a little while.” When he looked up, hellfire blazed in his eyes. 

“Never mind,” she said, “apologize to Ella if you feel like it.” 

“Apologize for what?” 

A flap of wings and she was gone. He dissolved the platform with a wave of his hand and sat back in the throne in a huff. 

  


**** 

  


Later he heard her voice. 

_Lucifer,_ the voice said. Not a sound. A whisper in the back of his mind, from far away. Thought borne on divine energy, passing through barriers with ease. Delivered unerringly to him. 

A prayer. 

Chloe praying to him. 

_Lucifer -- Ella told me this might work -- she said you were here -- I miss you -- I know you can’t stay but_ \--- pause-- _I'll make dinner._

He took his face in his hands. Then he roared, rattling the foundations of hell. Off in the distance pillars crumbled and the earth split and new mountains were formed in the lake of fire. 

How could it be worse? To know he had to be here - do this - leave her - the only thing that he had adored with the fibre of his being. Now she could tease him like this. He would be forced to hear, forced to remember in so many ways that she was exquisite and impossibly far. 

He was used to pretending things were no less worse than he had before LA. He could not lie to himself, with the prayer. 

He imagined what the detective said when Ella gave her this advice. What would have Ella said about him? 

The thought that she was above him was an unending spot of agony, oozing like a wound from his soul. Her voice was a finger jabbed directly into the open sore. 

He took a breath of ashy air. If he closed his eyes and focused, he could spread his consciousness into every cell, know every demon. This was his fate, and the sooner he resigned himself to it, the better.


End file.
